By Kate Lovejoy, Elora Pfriender, and Emily Liu
First, we want to give thanks to the Department of Writing and Rhetoric and to Professor Weaver, who is the reason we are able to share student stories. Thank you for putting in countless hours, helping us interns advance our editing skills and create something to be proud of.
Thank you to our writers for making this possible, for giving fuel to our purpose. And to our readers, we hope this issue helps guide you on whatever path you are on or have yet to begin.
A note from Kate Lovejoy:
I came into this position not knowing much, but knowing I would have the chance to make an impact on my school and its students. I began working on the 29th issue of imprint along with Professor Weaver and two other interns in January. The process of our internship started with creating a theme of which our issue would revolve around. At first, the other interns and I did not think we would have one, but after creating query prompts, we soon realized we had a theme: UCF. But it wasn’t just a theme that we had, we had a purpose. By writing about UCF, students could share stories of how they found their home at UCF and/or how UCF has helped shape their identity. Our purpose was to help students who are still looking for that home, and/or have yet to find their identity.
In one of the query prompts, we asked our writers to list what they saw as hidden gems on the UCF campus. One writer took to writing an article on UCF Arboretum. Reading the article, I learned so much about a place that has been within walking distance for four years, yet was one I never visited. If I had access to an article such as this, I would have visited the Arboretum more and engaged in the many events it holds. Another writer wrote about a unique course, Rhetoric in Pop Culture, which I had the opportunity to take. While I was fortunate enough to know about the course and enroll, there are many students who would greatly enjoy Rhetoric in Pop Culture, but are unaware of its existence, or do not realize that it is a course available to any major. My hope is that in publishing these kinds of articles, I can share the names of unique classes, organizations, and services that UCF has to offer.
A note from Elora Pfriender:
Like many of the best things I’ve experienced in my two years at UCF, I stumbled into editing this issue of Imprint. My previous internship plans had fallen through last-minute, and Professor Weaver was gracious enough to bring me on board. At the time, I barely knew what my role would be, much less how deeply personal this issue would later become. I myself am a transfer student who ended up at UCF, in a degree program and on-campus activities I love, almost entirely by happenstance — by taking risks that led to self-discovery in unexpected places, and that’s what this issue is about.
Even when it feels like the rules keep changing, doors keep closing, and you can’t quite keep up, purpose and belonging will find you. This issue highlights those stories: stories of helping yourself by helping others, stories of community waiting to be discovered, stories of falling down and getting back up again. I see so much of myself in each of the wonderful pieces our contributors shared this semester, and I’ve learned so much about the many amazing on-campus resources and communities hiding in plain sight. My hope for this issue is that it will not only help you discover new things about both UCF and yourself, but also encourage you to keep discovering every day — to take risks and stumble into something new.
A note from Emily Liu:
This issue of Imprint is about hidden gems. For me, they’re the moments that precede nostalgia, waiting to bloom when we accidentally water them by passing a remnant of a past life. They’re almost always in plain sight if we take the time to look for them and if I insist there is beauty in the mundane, everything becomes worthwhile and everything becomes nostalgic.
When I think of hidden gems, I think of my freshman year, when my roommate and I turned on my phone flashlight and put it under her red Betty Crocker colander. We took our bowtie pasta from one shelf and ziti pasta from another, one person playing the pasta maracas and the other spinning the colander balancing on the phone light as a makeshift disco ball, before the bottom of one of the pasta boxes gave out and all the bowties were on the ground, our jaws dropped, colander still spinning. But the time between a moment and its memory is short and all of a sudden, this was years ago. Now, I can’t pass the pasta aisle at the store without thinking of it. It makes me content the way the taste of star anise does after not being home for a long time. It makes me laugh like I do thinking about the time my dad put blueberries in the spaghetti. It makes me nostalgic like driving by my elementary school where we played kickball and caught roly-polies in the wood chips. Our writers shared their own stories that will eventually give way to nostalgia, about changing their majors on the second day, adopting an elephant or simply walking through the arboretum. They make me want to go back to a place I haven’t left yet. This issue of Imprint is a collection of their hidden gems. Being an editor was mine.
